Culture

Adventures in Feministory: Law Professor Patricia J. Williams Opens Up

Patricia J. Williams, James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University, published these words twenty-five years ago in her renowned essay on slavery, race, gender, and rights called “On Being the Object of Property”: There are moments in my... Read more »

Girls, Girls, Girls: Recap of Episode 8 “It’s Back”

Girls, I love you. But this week’s episode just didn’t work. This could be because it’s hard to keep momentum after a string of excellent episodes, but this week’s uneven episode “It’s Back” was built on out-of-nowhere plot points.  The episode... Read more »

On Our Radar: Today's Feminist News Roundup

Welcome to Monday! Here’s all the feminist news on our radar this morning.  • Scientists say a baby born with HIV has been cured... Read more »

An Ode to Enlightened: The Best Show You Aren’t Watching

This Sunday is the season finale of HBO show Enlightened, starring Laura Dern as Amy Jellicoe, a woman who has a nervous breakdown after her self-destructive tendencies cause her life to implode.... Read more »

Don't Laugh—Here are Four Reasons I Genuinely Like "Cougar Town"

Remember when Cougar Town premiered four years ago and we all made a whole thing of it because of its name, and, oh my God, what was this trying to say about older women’s sexuality, and why are we... Read more »

A Feminist Perspective on American Rodeo

Women and horses have a complicated relationship: Women both identify with horses emotionally—connecting with the freedom they represent—and gain power from their ability to control them. One compelling example of this paradoxical relationship in women’s involvement in Wild West shows and... Read more »

Ms. Opinionated: We're Moving In Together But Our Parents Think We're Virgins

Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don’t... Read more »

The Best Lines from 1968 Book: The Bisexual Revolution

To celebrate the release of our new Pulp issue, I dredged up a handful of pulpy 1960s bottom-of-the-barrel paperbacks from a Portland vintage store. I’ll be bringing three of these long-forgotten titles back to light this week.  Today... Read more »

Guy Who Wore a “Pregnancy Suit” Expects Us to be Impressed. Sorry, Dude.

Last week, novelist Benjamin Percy was interviewed on the TODAY show about his experience of being “man pregnant.” Percy wore a Japanese-engineered pregnancy suit for nine... Read more »

The Pantsuit Trap: What TV Teaches Us About Female Role Models

TV shows House of Cards and Parks and Recreation both point important real-world dynamics. While young men have a wealth of male... Read more »

Pages

It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women

The marginalization of transgender women in feminism is not new, but the decades-long debate has taken on new dimension thanks to social media and the ease of finding strangers’ personal information online. Read more »

Black Girls Hunger for Heroes, Too: A Black Feminist Conversation on Fantasy Fiction for Teens

What happens when two great black women fiction writers get together to talk about race in young adult literature? That's exactly what happens... Read more »

The Dramatic History of American Sex-Ed Films

In 1948, in a seventh grade classroom in Eugene, Oregon, a teacher dimmed the lights and flipped on 16mm projector. A film called Human... Read more »

The Forgotten History of the Women Who Shaped Modern Advertising

It's easy to dismiss advertising as an anti-feminist industry. Read more »